Perfect Killer

by Robb T White

  Jade shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Mmunnffunnfer.’

  The effort to speak drew pus from his wounds around the hole in his face.

  In the lobby, Jade quickened her pace. Huff caught up with her in the parking lot.

  ‘He’s here,’ she said. ‘No doubt about it now.’

  ‘Could be just some other tough hombre with martial arts skills. What about notifying the press—get the public’s help?’

  Bar-Jonah mentioned the same thing last night when they spoke.

  ‘No,’ she said. It emerged as a throaty whisper. ‘He’s here, Lieutenant.’

  Meaning: she wanted first crack at him.

  Just being in the same city. Knowing he was here brought on a fight or flight rush of endorphins from her brain.

  ‘He’s slipping his gears if you ask me,’ the lieutenant said. ‘You say he’s good at disguising himself, why not lie low?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jade replied. ‘It might be a good idea to double up the cruisers doing welfare checks on Clarissa Evans’s house and her job site, don’t you agree?’

  ‘SWAT’s a better idea,’ Huff said. ‘There’s a lot of beef on the hoof that didn’t faze him. We called every hospital in Providence and your man never checked into any emergency room.’

  ‘He could be hurt even so,’ she said. ‘A minor wound. Sepsis is always possible. We’ll need to keep that in mind when we get suspects,’ she said.

  ‘You’re that sure?’

  ‘His luck’s running out,’ she said, affirming her own assumption, ‘he’s got a bolt hole somewhere in Providence and we have to flush him out.’

  Back at the precinct, she spent an hour on the phone to Gilker and Bar-Jonah on a conference call, both reporting what she had learned and asking them to get Providence PD, US Marshals, and, most importantly, the Providence field office in sync for imminent and further assistance. The plan, she told Bar-Jonah, was to go in hard once he was located. She felt light-headed because she was so far from the ennui of those Smiley Face weeks and months. Killing an FBI agent upgraded everything to what cops called a red-ball case.

  Her biggest concern was the attention he had drawn to himself in one short week: a sexual rival beaten in a public gym, a girlfriend assaulted, two friends of the rival so severely beaten one was on life support waiting for the plug to be pulled and the other was going to be sipping from a straw for the next three months.

  At two o’clock shift change, Lieutenant Huff gave the officers going off and coming on duty a briefing on the hunt. They weren’t saying more than that he was wanted as a suspect in the murder of an FBI agent last month and was believed to be in the area.

  She passed out copies of the Buffalo mug shots and a composite adjusted for Clarissa’s description. All gyms, member registrations, were assigned to pairs of detectives to be checked out in person. Other detectives were assigned to call gyms and fitness centers in Warwick, Fall River, and Bridgewater, at the outer rim of the perimeter, twenty-five miles distant. Every canteen and food truck licensed in Providence was being checked out. The same for dealerships, car rentals, used car lots, bars and restaurants along the waterfront. If Providence was home, as she believed, he’d be inclined to patronize familiar haunts while here. Three teams of officers and cruisers were assigned to check out the upper-end neighborhoods and gated communities. Providence’s millionaires were no different than anyone else’s: money called to money.

  If Clarissa Evans’s instincts were right, her Silver Spoon belonged to the class where the elite lived, worked, and intermarried. Every high school, prep school, and boarding school was being contacted. Sooner or later, all the raw data coming in over the next couple of days would allow them to draw a vector in his direction; they’d have a name to go with the face.

  Huff gave her the conference room for coordinating until the Boston Division, the Bureau’s main New England residence, could get up to speed and then it would be officially transferred to its satellite field office in Providence on Weybosset Street. She insisted to Bar-Jonah he run interference here, keep everybody in the Bureau’s loop.

  ‘The last thing I need on a manhunt is wasting time sending off six copies of a report while he’s right under my nose,’ she told him.

  ‘That’s what you have me for,’ Daniel said. ‘Talk to you tonight, same time.’

  Chapter 52

  STEVE MISRACH WAS A couch-crasher, a freeloader. He lived with different people until they couldn’t stand his company a day longer. He made money as a bouncer, she discovered, and was paid under the table. He never stayed long at any one bar or strip joint because the owners found it a better idea to fire him than to deal with the cops who came around after Steve administered one of his beatings to a customer who touched the girls or got belligerent.

  He’d moved down some since his thrashing at Joe’s Gym. Clarissa had suggested a few places where he worked in the past, but she was always a week or a month behind his movements. Bad weather was still a good way off, but Misrach took his act on the road in spring and winter, working in Florida at the college bars during spring break and down near Miami at the lesser South Beach resorts.

  Rissa swore she wasn’t in contact with him during Jade’s last stop to check up on her.

  ‘I can handle Steve, I told you that,’ Rissa fumed.

  It’s not Steve you need to be concerned about, Jade thought.

  They sat at the kitchen table and sipped decaf out of mismatched mugs. Clarissa Evans could have been a beauty but she’d lived rough for too long. The cotton-candy hair had been dyed more often than Madonna’s and the black roots established a wide badger stripe. Her forehead lump was gone, the swelling above her eyebrow barely noticeable; the yellow-black half-moon under her eye was in the final stages of healing.

  Was it the men in her life who wore her down or were women like her just forced to toughen themselves, blunt their beauty to get along in life? For all her empathy, Jade had a typical male’s hard time understanding why abused women remained with the men who beat them. It wasn’t politically correct to express that viewpoint but that was how she felt.

  ‘How’s ‘All Good’ doing? I ain’t had time off from work to go see him.’

  ‘His family took him off life support yesterday,’ Jade said.

  ‘Aw, shit, too bad. Corey was an OK dude, you know. Sometimes I think if we all hadn’t met Stevie, our lives could have been different.’

  ‘Clarissa—I’m sorry, Rissa—I need to find Steve. We’re going to get John Mahoney’s address soon. He’s not going stay invisible much longer, and he might be long gone. But we might save another life if we can get to Steve sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Look,’ Rissa said. ‘It’s not about snitching or any of that bullshit. I don’t know where he is. He organized that big fuck-up that done all this damage: Corey dead and Nick jammed up in the hospital. For all I know, he’s run for the fuckin’ hills.’

  Jade handed her another card. ‘I know I gave you one when we met, but please call me if you hear anything—anything at all, will you do that?’

  ‘Sure,’ Clarissa said. ‘I’ll add it to my collection.’

  She reached over to the fridge and pushed the card under the first one. The one from Lieutenant Huff, Homicide Bureau, was fixed by a penis-shaped kitchen magnet.

  Rissa turned back to where Jade was sitting. One of her breasts fell out of the terrycloth bathrobe and she casually tucked herself in.

  ‘I wish to fuck God had given me brains instead of these. Or a dick. Nothing but trouble, man.’

  Chapter 53

  ‘WHAT’S THE CATCH, MAN?’

  ‘No catch, Robbie,’ Wöissell said. ‘I’m leaving town and I thought you could use a car. We’re family, too, right?’

  ‘Gotta be a fucking catch, dude. Nobody gives a nice set of wheels away without wanting something back. Who’m I s’posed to kill? The old lady? Sure, fuck yeah. Just say it.’

  ‘Robbie, there’
s no catch,’ Wöissell insisted. ‘It’ll be sitting in the driveway of the house—’

  ‘—the same house I ain’t allowed to visit, right? Thanks to that fucko brother of yours for siccing the cops on me last time I came over to see the old bitch. If this is a set-up, so help me God, I’ll fuckin’ kill you first and him later.’

  ‘Robbie, do you remember that time you showed up at your mother’s wedding party high as a kite with a couple of your doped-up pals and tried to beat me up?’

  ‘Hey, wait a minute, Charles. I was just shooting off my big mouth. I never had nothing against you, man. Besides I was high, bro. It’s that deceivious bastard Fred—’

  Wöissell sighed. He tried to remember whether it was meth or formaldehydelaced marijuana that was stewing Robbie’s brains again.

  ‘We can rehash Fred’s shortcomings another time,’ Wöissell told him.

  ‘Fuck, we’ll need a couple weeks for that—’

  ‘Robbie, I want you to concentrate on what I’m saying to you. If you don’t want the Dodge, that’s fine. I can call a couple charities in town and they’ll have a tow truck at the house in an hour.’

  ‘All right, all right, fuck, all right,’ Robbie whined. ‘I’m bringing my posse with me so you better be square with me, Chuckster.’

  ‘Bring everybody and anybody you wish. Goodbye.’

  Wöissell hoped Robbie would be bringing every dope fiend, crimey, and member of his so-called posse he could muster. The more, the merrier.

  Chapter 54

  IT WAS LIEUTENANT HUFF calling. ‘We’ve got him,’ he said.

  Her heart went straight into her throat. She was speechless for a long moment as a dizzying rush of emotions overcame her at the words.

  ‘No, no, sorry. I don’t mean your sandwich man,’ the lieutenant said, realizing his mistake. ‘I mean Misrach.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He turned up walking out of Clarissa Evans’s house. Just like that, broad daylight. One of the cruisers doing a drive-past spotted him.’

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ she said. ‘Keep him on ice.’

  She smiled to herself despite the betrayal by Evans just moments after she left her house.

  ‘He’s able to talk just fine. He’s been complaining about the cold in the interrogation room.’

  ‘Good,’ she replied. ‘He’s not calling for a lawyer yet.’

  ‘I think he’s waiting to see what we have to charge him with first,’ Huff said.

  When she walked into the first interrogation room with Huff, the desk sergeant handed her a note. Misrach was trying to shrink into himself, clasping his arms around his huge torso for warmth. Huff introduced them both; nobody shook hands.

  ‘Fuck, man, turn up the fuckin’ heat in here. It’s goddamn freezing.’

  ‘It’s a lot colder where Corey De Hofnar is right now, Steve,’ she said. ‘He’s in a chilled box on a steel tray. Would you like to see what your little revenge scheme did to him?’

  ‘Hey, fuck you, that ain’t me. Go find that bitch’s boyfriend.’

  Misrach was unshaven, his big arms crossed over a tight shirt grease-spotted, and his body gave off a leathery smell.

  The lieutenant said, ‘We’re looking for him now. We hoped you’d help us out.’

  Steve pushed himself back in his chair, a little startled that the verbal attack would come from her, this half-pint federal agent, not the big cop with the scar.

  She said, ‘We can go visit your pal de Pasqualone in his room. At least he’s out of ICU.’

  Huff added, ‘I hope your friend likes Gerber’s baby food because that’s all he’s going to be getting for the next six months.’

  ‘Hey, wait a minute. Go find the guy who did that to Corey and Nick. What are you wasting time with me for?’

  ‘Tell me everything you remember about him. We want his address, where does he stay? Apartment, house, motel? What direction did he come from when he visited Rissa Evans? What kind of car did he drive? Give me something, Steve,’ Jade said.

  ‘I want immunity,’ Steve said.

  His voice was scratchy and raw like someone with laryngitis. Jade and Huff avoided exchanging a look.

  ‘What do you think you need immunity for?’

  ‘You tell me,’ he said.

  Huff leaned across the table toward him. ‘We can tell the prosecuting attorney who might—I said might—be contemplating charges on you for aggravated assault and battery, obstructing justice, violating a restraining order, and probably a dozen other charges, that you have fully cooperated in the apprehension of a dangerous suspect.’

  Steve looked from the cop to the small FBI agent.

  ‘Weesel,’ he said.

  The lieutenant shoved a pad and pencil across the table to him.

  Steve wrote it, and slapped the pencil on the table.

  ‘There, Weesel,’ Misrach growled. ‘I just fuckin’ wrote it, didn’t I?’

  She turned the pad around.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Jade asked him.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Like the animal, you know, the rat that eats chickens.’

  ‘Do you mean a ferret?’

  Misrach watched them get up and leave without another word to him.

  ‘Hey,’ he called after them, ‘where you two going? What about my deal?’

  Jade was on her cell in Huff’s office while the lieutenant worked the phone when a dispatcher knocked. No Weesel but several Wessels and a couple of others with variant spellings interchanging or doubling the s and the l. A half-dozen listings under the surname Woissell.

  ‘Sir, a caller to the Crime Stoppers tip line says he knows something about a crime. He didn’t say which but you said you wanted to be informed. He says it’s urgent, life and death, he says.’

  Huff picked up the phone. ‘This is Lieutenant Tom Huff. What is your information, sir?’

  ‘My name is Frederick Wöissell. I want to report my brother Charles as a possible wanted suspect in a crime.’

  Huff cupped the phone and looked at Jade.

  ‘What crime, sir?’

  ‘He threatened my life,’ the caller said.

  ‘Sometimes the bread doesn’t fall on the buttered side,’ Huff said to Jade.

  Chapter 55

  AT LEAST NOW HE knew. The FBI agents who swarmed over the driveway and threw a protesting Robbie to the ground had come from all directions. Because his house was situated for a clear view across the river, he kept the binoculars trained on the action.

  There she was, the little agent herself, in all her glory. Even from this distance, she looked to be in charge.

  He checked his watch. With a bit of luck, it would take time for them to realize Robbie Whitcomb wasn’t Charles Wöissell. Same height, hair and eye coloring might work for an hour, but any amount of time was in his favor.

  He’d have to run and look over his shoulder for the remainder of his life. Or that much of his life that mattered before the symptoms overwhelmed him. He had no intention of degenerating into a pitiable wreck of a subhuman if his fingers had the strength necessary to pull three pounds of trigger pressure.

  He remained where he was, watching, secreted behind a covering of fallen branches and dockweed. Most of the cops and FBI agents had stormed into the house. He could just make out the shape of Robbie’s head in the backseat of an unmarked vehicle. A good sniper could probably make the distance without much trouble adjusting for windage and gravity. He hoped Robbie wound up with the Dodge when all was said and done. One less thing for Fred.

  He expected Fred’s betrayal, but a part of him hoped his brother wouldn’t make the call even so. He figured getting out of town after forty minutes was going to be a problem once Robbie’s ID had been looked at. The airport, bus depots, and railroad stations would be the first thing the police would be checking. Roadblocks at the interstate access points would be choked off so getting onto Interstate 95 would be tough, probably impossible. The same for Highway 1 and the connecting roads to the
innerbelt. After 9/11, every major city had to file a plan with Homeland Security to lock down. Bridges in Providence would make that time even shorter.

  It was stupid not to run the minute he saw her in town, but he had to know and knowing meant he had to stay.

  After the feast, comes the reckoning.

  Chapter 56

  ‘SORRY, I’M A LITTLE testy. We were so close.’

  ‘We’ll get him. He can’t run far,’ Lieutenant Huff said. ‘The Marshals are on it now.’

  ‘How are the interviews with the others going?’

  ‘What a family,’ Huff said. ‘The stepmother is a kook. She’s threatening all kinds of lawsuits over her precious son.’

  ‘He doesn’t have more to add, I’m afraid,’ Jade said.

  ‘No, he’s a dupe. Still screaming about that Dodge belonging to him.’

  ‘The sister and her husband are full of bile toward their brother,’ Jade said. ‘The brother says he was attacked and threatened at a motel he was staying at, but he never reported it. Fred Wöissell believes this should take precedence over the slaughter of five people.’

  ‘That’s only five so far,’ Huff noted. ‘I think your sandwich man has had a busy life in the last ten years.’

  ‘We’re calling him by name now,’ Jade said.

  Charles Tyrone Wöissell.

  ‘We’re going over the Chad Burroughs case, too,’ Huff said. ‘The print on the sunglasses match the NCIC hit from Buffalo.’

  Buffalo. She was still sick to her stomach. That lawyer Frisbee who defended Ted Wassermann had the family name all along from the wire transfer. She’d left the note in the pocket of her blazer and didn’t open it until Fred Wöissell’s phone call to the station. What is the opposite of serendipity? How many days and weeks and long hours, wasted resources, were piled into that single trainwreck of syllables? She blamed herself for not making sure the channels of communication during the investigation were tighter as she moved from one field office to the other.